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Jan 28, 2019 Thomas Cannon

4 Ways Contact Centers Will Boost Employee Engagement in 2019

Employees high-fiving at work

In a previous blog, titled “5 Reasons Low Attrition Rates are Great for Customer Service”, we looked at how a low attrition rate in your company’s customer service is absolutely essential to a successful customer experience.

Whether you outsource your call center or have your own in-house team, happy and engaged employees are the very foundation of your business. Engaged employees will build better relationships with customers, provide a more knowledgeable service, work with improved efficiency and become brand ambassadors of your organization.

Despite these benefits, the vast majority of organization’s are still failing to engage their workers. According to Gallup’s 2017 State of the Global Workplace, 85 per cent of employees in the US are not engaged in the workplace.

A further study from The Conference Board, titled “DNA of Engagement: How Organizations Can Foster Employee Ownership of Engagement”, found this disengagement is costing companies around $450-550 billion each year.

So, how exactly will an outsourced call centers engage their employees in 2019? Advantage Communications has listed four ways:

1 - Improving the overall employee experience

There is a strong connection between employee happiness and work performance, meaning the happier your employees are the better your organization’s customer service will be. An increasing number of businesses are now realizing that do offer their customers the best experience, they now need to put their own staff first.

This is backed up by the same Gallup study, which found that employees who are engaged are more likely to improve customer relationships, with a resulting 20 per cent increase in sales.

That’s why contact centers are now putting the employee experience first. The very best call centers will focus on company culture, team building and professional development to create a culture in which not only are employees engaged but one in which they consistently want to progress.

2 - Real-time agent feedback that fosters growth

The digital world is real-time, and that means customers expect their issues to be resolved immediately. This has given birth to real-time data technology and operational intelligence, which gives agents in-the-moment information and performance feedback.

This real-time information not only helps customer service representatives to provide a superior customer experience, it also encourages agents to become more engaged through consistent feedback.

Through the use of real-time feedback, a call center can offer personalized feedback that reminds agents of their objectives and goals, offers insights into areas they can improve upon and rewards them for their strengths and successes.

3 - Finding ways to engage with millenials

Experts predict that by 2020, millennials, now aged between 21 and 35, will make up 35 per cent of the global workforce while ‘Generation Z’, aged 20 and younger, will make up 24 per cent. That means in just three years more than half of the entire workforce population will be made up of younger workers.

The best contact centers have recognized this, and they are now making plans to increase engagement with millenials and younger workers. By implementing new engagement strategies, call centers will be able to enlist a new generation of workers.

4 - Empowering agents beyond answering the phone

Traditional call centers are infamous for having high turnover rates amongst their employees. However, modern and innovative contact centers are moving far beyond the conventional call center and are now empowering agents to look much further than picking up the phone.

Modern customer service representatives will become brand ambassadors of your company and are focused on innovation, efficiency and excellence. They use innovative new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to take your customer experience to the next level.

Ready to learn more about how Advantage Communications empowers its agents to become brand ambassadors for your company? Contact us today and one of our experts would be more than willing to answer any questions you have.

Operational Efficiency Guide

Published by Thomas Cannon January 28, 2019